Alejandro Gamboa v. State

In The
Court of Appeals
Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo
No. 07-19-00408-CR
ALEJANDRO GAMBOA, APPELLANT
V.
STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE
On Appeal from the 100th District Court of
Childress County, Texas
Trial Court No. 5913, Honorable Stuart Messer, Presiding
August 18, 2020
ORDER ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Before QUINN, C.J., and PARKER and DOSS, JJ.
Pending before the Court is appellant’s motion for rehearing. He again asserts
that the orders amending the conditions of his community supervision referred to the
conditions specified in the court’s original judgment, and there were no such conditions
in the original judgment deferring adjudication of his guilt. So, because the amendments
mentioned only conditions in the judgment and said nothing about abiding by the
conditions in the original order (not judgment) imposing the conditions, the amendments
relieved him from complying with the conditions imposed by the original order (not
judgment).
Admittedly, appellant accurately describes the facts involved. The subsequent
orders amending his conditions of community supervision referred to those in the
“judgment” as opposed to the order originally imposing those conditions. But the trial
court’s intent is equally clear from those facts. It intended that the original conditions
within the “order” imposing them remain effective. Yet, for some reason, the trial court
used the word “judgment” for “order” when referring to the document containing the
original conditions. To the extent that this circumstance created an “ambiguity” within the
orders amending the conditions of supervision, as appellant argues, authority obligates
us to construe a court’s written edicts in a way that makes them serviceable as opposed
to useless. Tynes v. Mauro, 860 S.W.2d 168, 172 (Tex. App.—El Paso 1993, writ denied)
(stating that “[i]f possible, we construe a judgment so as to render it serviceable instead
of useless”); see In re Cantu, No. 13-16-00632-CV, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 13060, at *11–
12 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi Dec. 8, 2016, orig. proceeding) (mem. op.). This is another
way of saying that such orders and judgments must be construed in a way that effectuates
each word said.
To adopt appellant’s argument would be to render meaningless those portions of
the subsequent orders stating that the original conditions imposed via the judgment
remain effective. They could not serve any purpose because there were no conditions
imposed in the original judgment, only those imposed in the original order. We must forgo
reading the orders in question as being partially meaningless, and to do that, we construe
them as referring to the original conditions of community supervision initially imposed via
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order when referring to them as the conditions imposed via the original judgment. That
construction reflects the trial court’s intent and abides by the rule obligating us to read
them in a way that makes them “serviceable as opposed to useless.” And, in so reading
them, we also conclude that the conditions of probation appearing in the original order
and underlying the State’s effort to revoke appellant’s probation remained effective. That
said, we deny the motion for rehearing and leave our original opinion and judgment in
place.
It is so ordered.
Brian Quinn
Chief Justice
Do not publish.
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